As far as outward person is concerned she is very lovely,--so charming, that every man that comes near to her submits himself to her attractions and caprices.

It is but rarely that a novelist can succeed in impressing his reader with a sense of female loveliness.

The attempt is made so frequently,--comes so much as a matter of course in every novel that is written, and fails so much as a matter of course, that the reader does not feel the failure.

There are things which we do not expect to have done for us in literature because they are done so seldom.

Novelists are apt to describe the rural scenes among which their characters play their parts, but seldom leave any impression of the places described.